This year, British greenhouse and glasshouse manufacturer Hartley Botanic is celebrating a landmark 80th anniversary. The Lancashire-based business, which was founded in 1938 by brothers Vincent (RHS fellow) and Norman Hartley has been making its beautiful, handmade and bespoke aluminium greenhouses and glasshouses for 80 ‘trusted’ years, working from the same artisan factory beneath the […]

Toni adjusted the height of her raised bed for ease of use. (courtesy T. Gattone)Toni Gattone doesn’t ever want to stop gardening. This prolific writer, dynamic speaker, and author of an upcoming book on adaptive gardening from Timber Press says, “We all have physical limitations. Especially as we get older. But the question is—how and […]

Growing dahlias with relative ease is one of the joys of having a glasshouse. Not that it is impossible to grow them without one – you can stick the tubers straight into the ground if you like – but starting them in the greenhouse gives them the best possible head start, and means that the […]

Avocados and mangos are both very popular fruits, not just for their delicious flavors and versatility, but also for their significant health benefits. Both are loaded with vitamins and powerful antioxidants, in addition to many other nutrient properties. These characteristics are among the reasons why health-conscious people are increasingly adding them to theirdiets. Most of […]

Some plants, and oddly rather many glasshouse plants, have somewhat misleading common names. This gem has perversely come to be known as Cineraria though it is not a Cineraria but a Senecio. Cinerarias are so named for their soft white downy leaves like cineres the Latin for ashes. Some Senecios also have white or grey […]

Have you noticed that produce has become more expensive in supermarkets lately? One reason is the cost of transporting fruits and vegetables from the southern hemisphere, another is unfavorable recent weather in California, a major supplier of produce, and a third is a decreased number of migrant workers available for harvests. If you’re a greenhouse […]

Apart from the few days of summer last month we spent most of last month in low light, constant rain and chilling winds, so the ground is still too cold and wet for sowing crops directly and will be for a while yet, so thank goodness there is plenty to do in the greenhouse. Seeds […]

There’s a lot of unnecessary myth and magic about making garden compost says Jean Vernon First let’s unravel the confusion between the compost that you buy in bags for container plants and growing seeds. This, the trade, is called growing medium and is basically specially formulated to a precise recipe with a variety of ingredients, […]

I once received a breezy Christmas letter with the advice— “Everyone should take their family to the Galapagos.” I fell out laughing. Really? Everyone? What would the Galapagos look like then? And yet, when I walk into the garden of Marietta and Ernie O’Byrne, I understand that letter writer’s impulse. Everyone should see this acre-and-a […]

There’s one plant I really look forward to in May and that’s the tall, statuesque allium, because they provide strong verticals, round or drumstick heads and vibrant colour. They’re versatile too, because these tall early-summer alliums look equally at home in the vegetable garden, or the flower border, and you can create your own river […]

One of the greenhouse crops that I have never quite cracked is aubergines. Perhaps they just need more than I’ve got: time to get them going early enough; patience and light to nurse them through late spring indoors; and then heat in the summer. Obviously with the eternal optimism of the gardener I am fairly […]